Creating the Fighting Style of Dracula Untold

Last fall, I visited the set of Universal’s Dracula Untold in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Luke Evans (Fast & Furious 6, Immortals) stars in the origin film as Prince Vlad as he begins his inevitable transformation into the blood-sucking Dracula.

The film, however, isn’t a horror movie but rather an action-adventure tale. So obviously it requires some big fight scenes -- and that’s where stunt coordinator Buster Reeves comes in. He’s worked on many different films and television shows as both a stunt coordinator and a stunt performer, including the Dark Knight trilogy (he was Tom Hardy’s stunt double), Game of Thrones, Clash of the Titans, and more.

I caught up with Reeves during a rehearsal session for a sequence in the film called the Thousand-Man Fight, though there of course weren’t a thousand men on hand that day (that’s where CGI comes in!). We talked about that and also discussed Vlad’s particular fighting style in the film, as he leads his army against the invading Ottoman Empire as commanded by Dominic Cooper’s Mehmet. It seems the prince was trained by the Turks in addition to his own native Transylvanian style, and he utilizes a unique mix of the two approaches here. “What you see in Vlad is the best of both worlds,” says Reeves. Watch the video interview above for the full chat.

And be sure to check out our other interviews from the set. First up, I talked to Evans about transforming the classic figure of horror into something more heroic: